Q&A with Sion Sono

Director Sion Sono responds to questions regarding his latest film, Red Post on Escher Street (2020), screening as part of 21st Century Japan: Films from 2001-2020. Moderated by K. F. Watanabe, Deputy Director of Film, Japan Society. Please note: this Q&A assumes an audience that has already seen the film.

Sion Sono made his debut as a director in 1985 with I Am Sion Sono!! His 1986 film A Man’s Flower Road was selected at the PIA Film Festival (PFF), receiving the fourth PFF Scholarship, under which he made Bicycle Sighs (1990). His film Love Exposure (2008) won the Caligari Film Award and the FIPRESCI Prize in the Forum section of the Berlin International Film Festival. His 2010 work Cold Fish was screened in the Orizzonti section of the Venice International Film Festival. In 2019, he completed filming for Prisoners of the Ghostland as well as directing and writing the screenplay for The Forest of Love, an extended cut of which was released in 2020 as a Netflix original series entitled The Forest of Love: Deep Cut.